L 4060 slow FEL when box blade is on the 3PH

[Jim Goodman]

I bought a used L4060 with 170 hours on it a few weeks ago. I have used it for a few hours, only using the FEL. The tires are loaded with beet juice and I have not needed any ballast hanging on the 3PH yet. I bought an old 6' Gannon rollover box blade for my first 3PH attachment. Today, I put the ROBB on my tractor and proceeded to grade my 800' long driveway, which needed some maintenance. At this point, I had my FEL bucket raised a couple of feet off the driveway and I just had it sitting in that position as I ran around, back and forth on the driveway. I got to the point where I needed to do a little back-blading to smooth things out and it was at this point that I discovered that the FEL would raise and lover VERY slowly. The only way I could make it lower more quickly was to push the lever to float position and then the bucket would drop quickly. But if I wanted to control the raising or lowering of the bucket, it would just poke along very very slowly. Next, while sitting still, I lowered the box blade to the ground and the FEL returned to its normal, quick performance and it operated as it should. When I raised the 3PH to its maximum height with the box blade again, and just sat there with the box blade suspended above the ground, the FEL again was crawling along very slowly. This sequence happened repeatedly today. When I removed the box blade and raised the empty 3PH lift arms to their maximum height, the FEL again was operating very slowly. When I dropped the lift arms to a level position.....so that the arms were roughly parallel with the driveway surface, the proper performance of the FEL returned and continued to work properly until I parked it this evening.

Can anyone give me any clues about what is going on? I was running the machine at 2000 rpm the whole time. I was hoping to use that old 800+ pound Gannon box blade as additional ballast when using the FEL, but the loader was basically unusable today when I had the box blade suspended above the ground as I would have it if I were using it for ballast. It is taxing the hydraulic system when the hydraulics are needing to hold it off the ground? Or is there some adjustment that might need to be done (which I have no clue about how to make such an adjustment)? Thank you.

 

[TheOldHokie]

I bought a used L4060 with 170 hours on it a few weeks ago. I have used it for a few hours, only using the FEL. The tires are loaded with beet juice and I have not needed any ballast hanging on the 3PH yet. I bought an old 6' Gannon rollover box blade for my first 3PH attachment. Today, I put the ROBB on my tractor and proceeded to grade my 800' long driveway, which needed some maintenance. At this point, I had my FEL bucket raised a couple of feet off the driveway and I just had it sitting in that position as I ran around, back and forth on the driveway. I got to the point where I needed to do a little back-blading to smooth things out and it was at this point that I discovered that the FEL would raise and lover VERY slowly. The only way I could make it lower more quickly was to push the lever to float position and then the bucket would drop quickly. But if I wanted to control the raising or lowering of the bucket, it would just poke along very very slowly. Next, while sitting still, I lowered the box blade to the ground and the FEL returned to its normal, quick performance and it operated as it should. When I raised the 3PH to its maximum height with the box blade again, and just sat there with the box blade suspended above the ground, the FEL again was crawling along very slowly. This sequence happened repeatedly today. When I removed the box blade and raised the empty 3PH lift arms to their maximum height, the FEL again was operating very slowly. When I dropped the lift arms to a level position.....so that the arms were roughly parallel with the driveway surface, the proper performance of the FEL returned and continued to work properly until I parked it this evening.

Can anyone give me any clues about what is going on? I was running the machine at 2000 rpm the whole time. I was hoping to use that old 800+ pound Gannon box blade as additional ballast when using the FEL, but the loader was basically unusable today when I had the box blade suspended above the ground as I would have it if I were using it for ballast. It is taxing the hydraulic system when the hydraulics are needing to hold it off the ground? Or is there some adjustment that might need to be done (which I have no clue about how to make such an adjustment)? Thank you.

Sounds like your FEL valve is not plumbed correctly. The tank return is being fed to the 3pt which is blocking flow. Not familiar with the hydraulic outlet on that tractor but if like most you should have 3 hoses going between it and the loader valve.

Dan

 

[Russell King]

It sounds like the 3PH may be going into relief mode.
I don’t see that you tested operation of the FEL with the BB on the ground or a few inches off the ground.

Are you hearing any squealing when the 3PH is at max height? There should be a feedback rod connected to the left side small arm (rock shaft) and a tab. It can be adjusted so the lift stops and doesn’t go into relief. That steals fluid flow from the fel.

You can search for adjustment process since I can’t recall the exact process. If you can’t find it then ask and I’ll look it up.

 

[Jim Goodman]

Sounds like your FEL valve is not plumbed correctly. The tank return is being fed to the 3pt which is blocking flow. Not familiar with the hydraulic outlet on that tractor but if like most you should have 3 hoses going between it and the loader valve.

Dan

So, does that mean it might be as simple as the quick connect hoses having been reconnected to the wrong couplings?

 

[Jim Goodman]

It sounds like the 3PH may be going into relief mode.
I don’t see that you tested operation of the FEL with the BB on the ground or a few inches off the ground.

Are you hearing any squealing when the 3PH is at max height? There should be a feedback rod connected to the left side small arm (rock shaft) and a tab. It can be adjusted so the lift stops and doesn’t go into relief. That steals fluid flow from the fel.

You can search for adjustment process since I can’t recall the exact process. If you can’t find it then ask and I’ll look it up.

Thanks. I did hear some squealing briefly a few times today, but I'm also half deaf and I wasn't paying attention to it specifically when it happened, so I'll test it out tomorrow. And it seems to me that your suggestion might be correct, because when I raised the empty lift arms to their maximum height, the loader reacted slowly......so maybe the lift stops are not adjusted correctly and it was going into relief as you suggested, but when I lowered them half-way down while empty, the loader worked fine. And the loader worked fine when I was sitting still and lowered the box blade to the ground. But, I did not try the loader with the box blade lowered halfway to the ground, I'll try out your suggestions tomorrow. Thank you.

 

[Russell King]

So, does that mean it might be as simple as the quick connect hoses having been reconnected to the wrong couplings?

There are many threads that end with reconnecting hoses to the correct position or just making sure they are connected correctly in the same place.

 

[SDT]

I bought a used L4060 with 170 hours on it a few weeks ago. I have used it for a few hours, only using the FEL. The tires are loaded with beet juice and I have not needed any ballast hanging on the 3PH yet. I bought an old 6' Gannon rollover box blade for my first 3PH attachment. Today, I put the ROBB on my tractor and proceeded to grade my 800' long driveway, which needed some maintenance. At this point, I had my FEL bucket raised a couple of feet off the driveway and I just had it sitting in that position as I ran around, back and forth on the driveway. I got to the point where I needed to do a little back-blading to smooth things out and it was at this point that I discovered that the FEL would raise and lover VERY slowly. The only way I could make it lower more quickly was to push the lever to float position and then the bucket would drop quickly. But if I wanted to control the raising or lowering of the bucket, it would just poke along very very slowly. Next, while sitting still, I lowered the box blade to the ground and the FEL returned to its normal, quick performance and it operated as it should. When I raised the 3PH to its maximum height with the box blade again, and just sat there with the box blade suspended above the ground, the FEL again was crawling along very slowly. This sequence happened repeatedly today. When I removed the box blade and raised the empty 3PH lift arms to their maximum height, the FEL again was operating very slowly. When I dropped the lift arms to a level position.....so that the arms were roughly parallel with the driveway surface, the proper performance of the FEL returned and continued to work properly until I parked it this evening.

Can anyone give me any clues about what is going on? I was running the machine at 2000 rpm the whole time. I was hoping to use that old 800+ pound Gannon box blade as additional ballast when using the FEL, but the loader was basically unusable today when I had the box blade suspended above the ground as I would have it if I were using it for ballast. It is taxing the hydraulic system when the hydraulics are needing to hold it off the ground? Or is there some adjustment that might need to be done (which I have no clue about how to make such an adjustment)? Thank you.

Does your tractor have optional draft control?

This is a common problem when the Rube Goldberg draft control system is installed on GL tractors.

Issue can usually be corrected by meticulous adjustment of the draft control and position control feedback linkages but most dealers do not do this upon installation of the draft control option as it requires hanging 900 (IIRC) Lbs. (not 850 or 950) on the drawbar and adjustment is sometimes time consuming.

I have draft control on my L6060 (would never buy it again) and it was back to the dealer twice for this identical issue. Dealer told me that they could not fix another customers symptom without removing the draft control, which they did.

If your tractor does not have draft control, lower the lift a bit from full up and see if the symptom goes away. If it does, the position control feedback linkage is out of adjustment, which, again, is not uncommon.

SDT

 

[SDT]

So, does that mean it might be as simple as the quick connect hoses having been reconnected to the wrong couplings?

Probably not.

SDT

 

[Tx Jim]

I agree with Russel King that it's highly possible when 3 pt hitch is raised with roll over box blade is causing 3 pt relief valve to open which utilizes some of the hyd pumps pressure/flow

 

[TheOldHokie]

I agree with Russel King that it's highly possible when 3 pt hitch is raised with roll over box blade is causing 3 pt relief valve to open which utilizes some of the hyd pumps pressure/flow

Where in the circuit relative to the loader valve is this relief? Is not the Grand L loader connected to the hydraulic outlet block immediately after main system relief and upstream of the 3pt?

Dan

 

[BobInSD]

I agree with Russel King that it's highly possible when 3 pt hitch is raised with roll over box blade is causing 3 pt relief valve to open which utilizes some of the hyd pumps pressure/flow

I hope this is true also. (I hope) I’m having the same issue. Found the fix on YouTube last night, but at that point I was clean and comfortable and didn’t want to go out and verify.

 

[Jim Goodman]

I hope this is true also. (I hope) I’m having the same issue. Found the fix on YouTube last night, but at that point I was clean and comfortable and didn’t want to go out and verify.

Thank you, everyone. It is indeed the relief valve setting on the 3PH, and think even I can adjust that and not screw anything up! I raised the lift arms to ever-higher positions and the FEL worked fine all the way to almost-the-top. And then, when I reached the top, the slow-loader symptoms hit. So I lowered the arms just a little and it worked fine again. I was able to operate the 3PH and look around to the back of the tractor to see the relief valve activation rod move and I can see how to adjust it and it will be a minor adjustment. So thanks for all the advice and patience.

 

[SDT]

Thank you, everyone. It is indeed the relief valve setting on the 3PH, and think even I can adjust that and not screw anything up! I raised the lift arms to ever-higher positions and the FEL worked fine all the way to almost-the-top. And then, when I reached the top, the slow-loader symptoms hit. So I lowered the arms just a little and it worked fine again. I was able to operate the 3PH and look around to the back of the tractor to see the relief valve activation rod move and I can see how to adjust it and it will be a minor adjustment. So thanks for all the advice and patience.

"[R]elief valve actuation rod"?

SDT

 

[Russell King]

"[R]elief valve actuation rod"?

SDT

Really the position fee

"[R]elief valve actuation rod"?

SDT

feedback rod or 3PH position rod. Can’t recall real exact name

 

[SDT]

Really the position fee

feedback rod or 3PH position rod. Can’t recall real exact name

Understand position control feedback rod, which is what I was referring to above, but never heard of a relief valve actuation rod.

SDT